“Your family barely knows me, Eric. I met your parents once.”
“They loved you. Even Cece will now, and she’s impossible to please. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, but I think you’re building me up too much. Your parents couldn’t pick me out of a lineup. If I was in their shoes…”
The words died. If I were in their shoes, I’d be sitting in this room alone, dying a little more each day.
Eric’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me into his embrace. I wanted to stay and pretend everything was fine—that my dad wasn’t dying, that Caleb wasn’t suffering, that Eric and I had a real chance.
But I’d promised Eric I’d stop pretending. Wasn’t it time I got real with myself?
“Thank you for believing in me, Eric.”
“Thank you for trusting me, Jamie.”
“Didn’t we already cover the trust thing?” I managed a smile.
“Yeah, you’re right. Is that strange?”
“What?”
“That we trust each other so completely, so fast?”
I hadn’t considered it before. Trusting Eric felt effortless. He’d been protecting me, watching over me from the moment we met.
But what reason had I given him to trust me?
“Maybe. It probably has to do with all the drama you’ve seen me go through. You’ve witnessed my ugly side.”
“Even your ugly side is beautiful.” His voice dropped, intimate and full of meaning as he leaned closer.
Heat flooded my cheeks at his words, and the way he looked at me.
Then his lips were on mine, fast as lightning. His kiss ignited something fierce and burning deep within me, threatening to consume everything I thought I knew about myself.
My core turned molten, and I kissed him back with an abandon I didn’t know I possessed.
God, the things he made me feel.
Terrifying things. Things that pushed every boundary I’d built, shifted my understanding of the world, changed the entire balance of my carefully constructed life. Feelings that would mark me permanently, long after we were done.
But how was I supposed to go back to Toronto and pretend none of this happened? How had I managed to make everything even more complicated than before?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jamie
My dad looked dead. In five hours, he’d barely stirred, and it was freaking me out.
It reminded me of Hunter as a newborn and how I’d check to make sure he was still breathing whenever he fell asleep. It was embarrassing to admit the number of times I woke him, just to be sure he was still alive.
I was tempted to do the same with my father now, except the monitor showed he wasn’t dead yet, and I wasn’t insane enough to disturb him. Waking him would mean facing him again.
Although maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
He wasn’t going to last much longer. All I could do was find peace with it.
With him.
